Family wants answers after inmate's suicide in state facility near Orlando

William Walker's body was found hanging inside the Central… (DOC, DOC )

January 3, 2014|By Desiree Stennett, Orlando Sentinel

As William Walker's body hung inside a state correctional facility near Orlando on New Year's Eve, letters that he had written before his death were enroute to his parent's Port St. Lucie home.

Two letters have already arrived and more may be coming. His mom, Suzanne Walker, hasn't been able to work up the courage to open them.

The Florida Department of Corrections confirmed his death on Friday. But they would not release other details about the Dec. 31 death. Walker said officials told her he hanged himself.

William Walker had been at the Central Florida Reception Center since Dec. 4. He was scheduled to be moved from the holding facility, which is in east Orange near State Road 528, to serve his sentence at a state prison within two weeks, his mother said.

Walker had been convicted of marijuana possession and drug trafficking after St. Lucie County deputies found 107 oxycodone pills and about 30 grams of marijuana in his bedroom about a year ago.

He had been sentenced to five years for the marijuana possession and another three to 10 years for trafficking and had plans to fight for a lighter sentence.

This was Walker's third conviction since 2004. That year, hurricanes Frances and Jeanne wreaked havoc in St. Lucie County and elsewhere in Florida, leaving Walker, who worked as a welder at the time, unemployed.

According to his latest arrest report, he told deputies that he intended to sell drugs to supplement his pay as an employee at a small cabinet manufacturing company.

"When you fall on hard times, you make bad decisions," Suzanne Walker said Friday, adding that her son saw drugs as a way to make ends meet until he could find more work.

Suzanne Walker said her son was an informant for the Port St. Lucie Police Department. His help led to 18 arrests, his mother said.

A Port St. Lucie Police Department official could not be reached Friday.

Suzanne said she spoke to her son nearly every day that he spent at the reception center and said she never noticed any signs of depression. His suicide shocked her.

Suzanne Walker said she and her husband are trying to scrimp together all the money they can find to get their son's body home and give him a proper burial without DOC assistance.

"There's no way in hell they're touching my child's body again," she said.

She said she has been stonewalled by officials who refuse to provide additional information as the investigation into her son's death continues. Her family hired an attorney and hopes they will be able to coax more details from the state.